Author's Note: This piece was written for a fiction challenge, and my first time writing a fanfic for a long time. Hope you enjoy. Yep, I don't own Phoenix Wright nor his associates. The "whose car are we driving?" skit was taken from Justice for All...a definitive classic :3
Zest
Magician in Jeans
He opened his eyes, and found himself sitting in a court proceeding. Once again.
The young man groaned, regretful that he was not the type who could easily forget his duties. The truth of him being assigned to sit in a week's worth of court sessions, for him to take down notes and write a report for a class, stuck with him like molasses on a hapless cookie.
It was his fourth day in court.
His eyes swept across the gallery. The citizen's jury, check. The audience, check. The sweaty defendant, check.
The defense attorney and the prosecutor were not yet in their respective stands. He checked his watch. They still had five more minutes before the 'show' starts.
He looked down on his lap. His stenographer's notebook, which only had two pages barely filled with notes because there were simply almost nothing noteworthy to write about, check. His almost unused pen, check.
"I know what you feel, pal," said a uniformed man beside him, quite suddenly. "You feel like, 'hey, it's another day, another drama' eh? You've got that look in your face, I don't even have experience it to know what you're feeling right now." He adjusted his jacket with an effortless shrug. "You're one of those law students, yeah?"
He cringed upon hearing the words 'law student'. Memories of the previous court proceedings rushed into the young man's head. He had attended sessions for simple cases: arson, robbery, murder. Cases simple enough to comprehend who was the guilty, or who was the innocent. Despite the undercurrent of intentions or motives that propelled the defendant to commit crimes, the court always delivered verdicts in such methodical, mechanical manner. That was always how it went, at least in the last three days he sat in court.
They made things so simple, so robotic, as if human motivation can be unlocked by mere mathematics.
To put it simply, everything that preceded in court so far was frighteningly predictable. His own intelligence didn't help, either.
He finally nodded, remembering that that other man asked him a question. "Bored out of my wits, too," was all he said. In fact, I'm planning to drop this course altogether to save myself from this sham of 'due process' he wanted to add, but kept himself in check. There was no need to arouse any interest in his plight, certainly not from any stranger.
A yet-to-be filled out yellow form for shifting courses was folded and slipped neatly between the pages of his stenographer's pad; a corner of the yellow paper peeking out from the edges of his notepad, like a shy girl secretly begging for acknowledgment. He discreetly tucked in the stray corner, careful not to incite the other man's notice.
"Well, you're in luck, pal," said the scruffy-looking man. "See ya."
The law student raised his brows a little, losing his momentum despite himself. He didn't expect that a few seconds of interacting with Mr. Scruffy was so welcoming, he was thrown off when the man suddenly got up and walked towards the stand.
Boredom does this, he decided, realizing that it was already time. Cracking his knuckles, he flipped open his notes to a blank page, and removed the cap of his pen. Luck my ass, he thought derisively. No matter how interesting a case may be, I'll find better fare in the evening news.
A droning sound buzzed over the gallery as soon as the defense attorney and the prosecutor took their corresponding places. Wait a minute, The young student frowned a little. I've never seen them before.
The judge finally called the attention of all present, and declared that the court was in session.
"The prosecution is ready, Your Honor," the Prosecutor, wearing a quite stoic red, declared. Unlike the other prosecutor that that young man was accustomed to seeing, this one was definitely younger and had a straighter, more confident poise. The confidence was evident in the cravat that he wore; nobody else could wear such a thing and still look respectable.
"The defense is ready, Your Honor," the Defense Attorney, clad in a down-to-earth blue suit, said. This one looked calm, but the sort of calm that almost betrayed the powerhouse waiting to be unleashed in just a snap of his fingers. His facade of brashness somehow overshadowed the fact that he seemed to go to court in such a hurry, with his hair slicked back into spikes that the young man assumed was done while the Defense Attorney was running to court.
They were new faces, but the young man 'knew' that it was still the same old story all over again. Presentation of facts, interrogation, rationalization, passing of verdict. Everything done in a methodical way.
Without any humanity.
The Judge then coughs, and asks the Prosecutor to deliver his opening statement.
"Thank you, Your Honor," The Prosecutor said, nonchalantly. "The defendant, Mr. Blair Wissom, was at the scene of the murder." A shrug. "The prosecution has evidence that he committed the murder," the Prosecutor looked pointedly towards the Defense Attorney and the defendant, as if saying Come on, disprove me, bitches, underneath his actual speech like a smothering of dark chocolate under peanut butter.
"And we have a witness who saw him do it." So saying, he did a mock bow, and sported a smirk that dared the Defense to defy him.
The young man was slightly startled at the subtle show of theatrics. What? He scribbled a short note in his trusty stenographer's pad. The prosecution is a little strange today.
"Oh really?" The judge blinked. "Do tell." The judge had a slightly dazed look on his face.
Great. A jaded judge, the young man wryly said inwardly.
The witness turned out to be the scruffy man he talked with earlier. What was more interesting was that turned out to be a detective. "Well, sir, it went like this..."
The detective's narration of events went smoothly, until the Defense Attorney, who kept quiet until then, found something inconsistent with his statement. "HOLD IT!" he exclaimed with the slamming of hands on the table. Nothing can punctuate an interruption better than that.
The young man was, despite himself, impressed at the way that simple outburst caught the attention of everyone in the gallery.
The Defense Attorney then put his hands on his hips and looked at the witness squarely in the eye. "Detective Gumshoe, how could you tell if..." he continued his speech with such righteous conviction that everyone could almost see the gleam in his eye. "...in other words, nobody could have actually seen that take place!"
"What?" OBJECTION!" It was the Prosecutor's turn to slam his hand onto the table. "The defense is clearly..." He then proceeded to enumerate the facts why he deemed the defense faulty in his arguments, and before he was about to finish off his statement, yet another outburst came from the defense' side.
"OBJECTION!" Another pounding on the table. "There's absolutely no way the witness could have seen the actual..."
"Oh no you don't," the Prosecutor could almost be heard seething in anger. "OBJECTION! I can't have the defense badgering my witness!"
Said witness was almost cowering in the witness' stand, almost blabbering in confusion, if not out of fear of the hot-tempered Prosecutor. "W-Well, I-uh,"
"Silence! Do that, and you'll look forward to your next salary review!" barked the Prosecutor.
The Defense and the Prosecution then proceeded to throw each other volleys of contradiction and evidence, occassionally incriminating themselves or other witnesses.
"OBJECTION!" Out came another frenzied delivery of speech of 'what should be'.
"OBJECTION!" Another spitfire of what was supposed to be contradictory statements.
A pounding of the gavel. "Objection overruled!"
"ORDER! ORDER IN THE COURT!"
All the while, in the midst of the almost deafening, excited chatter that washed over the entire courtroom. the young student jotted down notes in such fast handwriting as if his life depended on it. He also found himself looking to and fro between the Defense's side and the Prosecution's side, as if he were watching a tennis match.
"Evening news hasn't got anything like this," he breathed as he continued to scribble notes in haste while looking up every once in a while to witness the action taking place in the courtroom.
Never before in his life had he witnessed any court proceeding that was carried out in such zest. For the first time, it felt electrifying.
"...TAKE THAT!" The Defense Attorney grinned at the Prosecutor's face, waving a zip-locked piece of evidence. "Do you know what this is?"
The Detective turned ash-white at the sight of the thing enclosed in the zip-lock container. "That...that...um..." He was now at a point wherein a dog would have been better off than him, simply because the dog had a tail to tuck between his legs.
The Prosecutor was gritting his teeth. "What. Is. That. Thing. Wright!"
"Well, this is the evidence that you so love, Edgeworth," the Defense Attorney said, a grin almost splitting his face into two. "The witness clearly stated that he saw the victim walking..."
It took almost five minute's worth of discourse from the Defense until the Prosecution grudgingly asked, "Is that what you're driving at?"
"Yes!" Another decisive, triumphant slam on the table. "That is what I'm driving at."
"Oh!" The Judge exclaimed. "Uhm. Where are we going? And whose car are we driving?"
"Good morning, you have reached Wright and Co. Law Offices."
"Yes, good morning. I just need to know whether you'd be interested in taking an understudy..."
The yellow form meant for shifting college courses was already crackling in the fireplace, burning brightly.